DIAGNÓSTICO

Personification, animal metaphors, and so on are part of the cultural and ideological framework of English and its metaphorical constructs. They lead into the area of conceptual metaphors, the deep metaphors embedded in the language described by Lakoff and Johnson ( 1980) who showed the systematic continuum from individual meanings of single words through to sets of FEIs. One example is the metaphor cited by Lakoff and Johnson ' Life is a gambling

game' ( 1980: 51): compare discussion of this by Dillard ( 1975: 61ff.). FEIs

relating to card games and gambling include: a trump card

all bets are off come up trumps

(come) within an ace of VERBing cover/hedge ONE'S bets

do you want a bet (on it)?, don't bet on it!, I wouldn't bet on it follow suit

have an ace up ONE'S sleeve hedge ONE'S bets

hold all the aces

in the betting, out of the betting in the running

knock spots off SOMEONE/SOMETHING lay ONE'S cards on the table

(like) a house of cards (like) a pack of cards

not be playing with a full deck on the cards

open/start a book on SOMETHING

(play ONE'S cards) close to ONE'S chest play ONE'S cards right

show ONE'S hand

SOMETHING is a good/safe bet the aces are in SOMEONE is hands

the cards/odds are stacked against SOMEONE turn up trumps

what's the betting you bet

you can bet your bottom dollar--

Lakoff ( 1987: 380ff.) discusses a general construct 'Anger is heat': this

incorporates research carried out with Kövecses, itself reported in Kövecses ( 1986). Lakoff explores the ways in which various aspects of the metaphor are realized in different FEIs. For

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example, there are notions of heat (hot under the collar, hot and bothered) and of the body being a container which can explode under pressure (make

someone's blood boil, blow one's top). This relates to another construct

'Passions are beasts inside a person', and it is realized with respect to anger in FEIs such as get out of hand, lose one's grip, and breathe fire. Lakoff explores these metaphors further to explain apparent restrictions on their semantics or contexts of use, particularly with respect to the exact degree and exact kind of anger connoted. Kövecses and Szabð( 1996) look closely at metaphors

relating to fire, especially those which realize constructs such as 'anger is fire', 'love is fire', 'enthusiasm is fire', and so on. Not all their examples are FEIs, but they include:

burn the candle at both ends catch fire, on fire

carry a torch (for SOMEONE) fan the flames

set fire to SOMETHING spit fire

a wet blanket

Fire in the belly and set the world/Thames on fire are further examples. There

are other fire-based constructs they might have explored here: 'destruction is fire', 'danger is fire', or 'danger is heat', as in

crash and burn

get ONE'S fingers burned go up in smoke

a hot potato

if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen in the hot seat

like a moth to the flame play with fire

there's no smoke without fire too hot to handle

Many other basic conceptual metaphors can be observed in FEIs. 'Life is a vehicle' or 'situations are vehicles' can be seen in

abandon ship a sinking ship in the same boat miss the boat/bus push the boat out rock the boat run a tight ship

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ships that pass in the night upset the apple cart

FEIs such as by the way and go round in circles reflect 'an argument (or discourse) is a journey'. Compare the discussions by Lakoff and Johnson of other metaphors concerning journeys ( 1980: passim). A further conceptual metaphor emerging from database FEIs is 'life is a sea' or 'life is a

swimming-pool' and so on. It occurs in general extended or metaphorical uses of words such as tide, sink, drift, and so on, in phrasal verbs such as dive in

or float around, and in

a big fish in a little pond a fish out of water

a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, it's water under the bridge at sea (= in difficulty)

between the devil and the deep blue sea come hell or high water

go off the deep end go swimmingly home and dry in at the deep end in deep water

keep ONE's head above water muddy the waters

on the rocks

out of ONE'S depth

pour oil on troubled waters sink or swim

still waters run deep swim with the tide take the plunge

test the water, test the waters there are other fish in the sea

tread water (= not make much progress) uncharted waters

Clothing might be predicted to occur in FEIs that realize a construct 'clothing is concealment' or 'clothing is appearance', and certainly a few of them do:

a wolf in sheep's clothing an iron fist in a velvet glove draw a veil over SOMETHING ONE'S best bib and tucker old hat

SOMETHING fits like a glove take the veil

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Interestingly, however, a number of clothing metaphors in FEIs can be characterized loosely as 'clothing is behaviour':

a feather in ONE'S cap at the drop of a hat

by the seat of ONE'S pants cap in hand

get ONE'S knickers in a twist get ONE'S skates on

get too big for ONE'S boots

hand in glove with SOMETHING/SOMEONE

hats off to X!, take ONE'S hat off to SOMEONE/SOMETHING have a bee in ONE'S bonnet

hold on to SOMEONE'S apron strings (and variations) hot under the collar

if the cap fits, wear it I'll eat my hat

in ONE'S shoes in plain clothes

keep SOMETHING under ONE'S hat

knock SOMETHING/SOMEONE into a cocked hat lick SOMEONE'S boots

off the cuff

pull ONE'S socks up put a sock in it

put ONE'S shirt on SOMETHING scare the pants off SOMEONE set ONE'S cap at SOMETHING shake in ONE'S shoes

take the veil

take up the gauntlet talk through ONE'S hat the boot is on the other foot throw down the gauntlet throw ONE'S hat in the ring trail ONE'S coat

Many of these are metonyms, and indicate someone's actions, reactions, or behaviour by means of a vehicle which describes clothing or actions involving clothing.

Kövecses and Szabá ( 1996) argue that an awareness of underlying

metaphorical constructs is pedagogically valuable. It can help by foregrounding system and similarity, and providing a basis from which unfamiliar

combinations can be understood. While they do not suggest that all idioms can be explicated in terms of metaphorical constructs, they assert that 'many, or perhaps most, idioms are

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products of our conceptual system and not simply a matter of language (i.e. a matter of the lexicon)'.

It is, in fact, hardly surprising that cultural constructs underlie metaphorical FEIs. After all, metaphors, especially institutionalized ones, exploit certain characteristics inherent in the vehicle and applicable to the tenor, and inevitably also exploit well-understood characteristics such as 'fire=heat' or 'fire=danger'. We make use of conventional real-world knowledge about the nature of things in order to interpret non-literal meanings. The problem is precisely as Kövecses and Szabá say ( 1996: 330) 'when we say that the meaning of an idiom is motivated we are not claiming that its meaning is fully predictable'. The exploration and analysis of motivations which inform

metaphors and the synthesis of the motivations into systems is ultimately post hoc, providing a wise-after-the-event explanation. It has little predictive

power. Even with a basic concept such as fire and related phenomena such as flames, heat, and sparks, there is a very large number of potential ideas to be exploited in FEIs and metaphors, as Kövecses and Szabá show. An unfamiliar metaphor can be interpreted by means of real-world knowledge about the source domain where this is ambiguous, but the correct metaphorical system in use can only be ascertained if or when the correct reading and hence correct target domain is known. For example, wet blanket can be rationalized in terms of 'fire is enthusiasm'--something that dampens enthusiasm or puts out

fire--but historically and practically, it could as easily have developed a meaning 'something that prevents or stops danger, a safeguard'. Similarly, Kövecses and Szabá ( 1996: 344) link have clean hands to a structural metaphor 'ethical is clean', relating it to he got his hands dirty. In fact, have

dirty hands and their later have blood on one's hands would be better

examples: get one's hands dirty relates rather to their metonymy 'the hands stand for the activity', since it generally implies positively evaluated practical involvement and usually diligence, rather than unethical behaviour. Compare the discussion of ambiguity and analogy in Section 7.2.

Some recent psycholinguistics work, for example that reported in Gibbs ( 1992), broadly supports the validity of conceptual metaphorical constructs. However, Keysar and Bly ( 1995) investigated the transparency of idioms and the abilities of informants to make connections between metaphorical and literal or conceptual meanings. They chose 20 obsolete or unfamiliar idioms, which included the goose hangs high 'things are looking good', to row cross-

handed 'to be self-reliant', and to play the bird with the long neck 'to be out

looking for something or someone'. Informants were given contexts -206-

with the original, 'correct' meanings; with the opposite meanings; and with completely different meanings. Keysar and Bly suggest as a result that 'native speakers' intuitions about the transparency of idioms systematically depends on their knowledge of the stipulated meaning of the idiom. They argue that conceptual metaphors only account for a few cases and that 'intuitions

[concerning transparency and conceptual metaphors] are partly a product of the links created as a result of the conventional use of the idiom'.

There are very clearly strong metaphorical systems at work--or at play--within FEIs. However, these systems need to be seen as only a partial explanation of diachronic processes. To be more than that would be to become too abstract to be meaningful. What theories of conceptual metaphors do offer is a very important insight into the ways in which features may be systematically transferred between source and target domains, as an explanation of

motivation. They may indeed be linked into problem-solving strategies rather than providing cast-iron rules for the interpretation of the unfamiliar.